Firefly Doing Better Than Buffy Season 5 At Amazon

POSTED BY: outlander
UPDATED: Saturday, January 10, 2004 18:45
VIEWED: 3305
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OUTLANDER

Friday, January 9, 2004 2:11 AM

Both Firefly and Buffy Season 5 DVD sets were released on the 9th of December. Firefly's current ranking is 13 and Buffy Season 5's ranking is 16. Firefly has a Star rating of 5 stars and Buffy Season 5 has a rating of 4.5 stars. Firefly has 426 reviews and Buffy Season 5 has 219 reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/dvd/all/

I'm impressed that Firefly seems to be more popular that Buffy Season 5. Buffy Season 5 is my favorite Season of Buffy, though I recon 16:9 widescreen is the only way to way to watch it. I never thought there would be an advantage in live in Australia when it comes to buying DVDs.

KERNELM

Friday, January 9, 2004 3:48 AM

While FF seems to be currently doing better than Buffy, Buffy Season 5 in fact made the Amazon Year-End Top 100 lists (both editor's choice and most popular in terms of number sold), while FF didn't. And Buffy is outselling FF overall as well, as Buffy made the Billboard list a couple of weeks ago and FF didn't. As much as I'd like to believe so, while it would have certainly helped, I don't think stores stocking more copies would have let FF crack the lists either.

As for widescreen Buffy, I've got to go with Joss on this one. The whole point with widescreen is to preserve the Original Aspect Ratio, or Creator Preferred Ratio if they're different. Making something widescreen when it's intended to be fullframe is just as bad as the other way around. What's next, making Casablanca widescreen? Firefly was meant to be a widescreen show. Angel was meant to be widescreen starting with season 3. Buffy was never meant to be widescreen. Listen to Joss's commentary on "The Body." Widescreen would mess up a lot of the shot compositions. Actually, it seems to me selling WS Buffys in R2 and R4 is basically the same thing as selling fullframe versions of widescreen movies here: it's the public's preferred format.

I actually watch my Angel Season 2 DVDs with Pan and Scan turned on to recreate the OAR.

OUTLANDER

Friday, January 9, 2004 4:03 PM

I’ve said it before and I will say it again Joss Whedon should have released Buffy seasons 4 to 7 region 1 in 16:9 widescreen so that those who want to see it that way could have and those who wanted to watch it in 4:3 could have hit the Zoom button on the DVD remote and watched it with the sides chopped of.

Having seen Buffy in 16:9 I would now never go back to 4:3. Imagine the image below with the sides chopped off and doesn't it look much better the way it is?

Follow the link below to see more Widescreen Buffy Caps and then try to tell me that you would prefer to see any of those images with the sides chopped off, because I sure wouldn’t.

http://www.alanna.net/screencaps/

P.S. Buffy season 5 having higher sales figures than Firefly just means that Buffy season 5 started strongly. But Firefly has long legs and may still catch up.

OUTLANDER

Saturday, January 10, 2004 2:13 PM

I just thought I would give every body an update. While Firefly is still holding strong going from a ranking of 13 to 14 Buffy season 5 has dropped even further going from 16 to 26. As I said before Firefly has staying power.

FIREFLY68MTL

Saturday, January 10, 2004 2:31 PM

Just my opinion but I always thought that Buffy season 5 was not one of the best. Both season 4 and 5 were a bit long for myself in fact.

It was a sort of period of changes for JW and Buffy I think moving away from the highschool Buffy and preparing the coming of adult Buffy with the amazing final 2 seasons.

My opinion

LADYJAYNE

Saturday, January 10, 2004 6:28 PM

Actually, I just finished watching Buffy S5 and the phrase that kept coming to mind was, "Oh gods, I wish they'd have just stopped here." Yes, there was a lot of good stuff to come (Once More With Feeling; Smashed; Dead Things) but I think overall the series as a whole would have had a stronger ending. I've always prefered group effort + self sacrifice to deus ex machina.

--Kala

OUTLANDER

Saturday, January 10, 2004 6:35 PM

For me Season 5 was the most confident, well written and produced of all the seasons of Buffy. It had so many strong story elements:

(1)The arrival of Dawn and Glory
(2)Buffy and the Scooby gang's realisation that Dawn is the Key
(3)The Departure of Riley
(3)Spike's love/obsession for Buffy
(4)Dawn's revelation that she is the key and the aftermath of that revelation
(5)Buffy having to fight an enemy (glory) that she can not kill
(6)The revelation that Ben is Glory.
(7)The death of Buffy's mum
(8)Buffy Having to deal with Dawn after her mum’s death.
(9)Willow having to deal with a mentally deranged Tara after Glory's attack on Tara
(10)An overwhelmed and comatosed Buffy.
(11)Buffy sacrificing herself to save Dawn

I would challenge anyone to come up with a list longer than this for any other season of Buffy. For me Season 5 was a truly power season.

Season 2 is my second favourite, Season 6 I believe is the most ambitious and flawed of all the seasons, and Seasons 1, 3, 4 and 7 I like equally.

OUTLANDER

Saturday, January 10, 2004 6:45 PM

What is going on? I just checked the Amazon sales ranking again, and Firefly has gone back up to 13, but Buffy season 5 has now dropped even further to 30.